All types of running events are sharing their excitement for RaceJoy’s cutting edge tracking technology. This last weekend we had six road races, a trail run and an obstacle course with lots of mud. Before going further – as this will simply be a thought you can’t shake – what did they do to protect their phones? Well, the race director purchased special phone protectors for those who wanted to use RaceJoy. Now, that is a race director who covers all the details!

Below are screen captures of the Mud Dog Run race in Maryland showcasing RaceJoy’s GPS alert system in which we issued alerts as people crossed certain obstacle points on the course – love the Trash Dog Dumpster!

The Pittsburgh Wild Half Trail Race was a great trail race with a course that looks like a nicely drawn Etch A Sketch. Race participants really liked this course and said it was a lot of fun. We were happy to see the cell conditions were solid and RaceJoy was able to track, send alerts and issue cheers to participants throughout the event.

RaceJoy Race Winner! RunAPalooza!

The race with the highest usage this weekend was, by far, RunAPalooza in Asbury, New Jersey. This race offers a half marathon, relay event, and 5K course option. We saw some seriously fast runners at this race and live tracked close to 120 participants on race day. The race director was very excited to share RaceJoy’s new technology with his participants and did a great job getting the word out and to gather feedback after the event. Thanks, Bob!

We also had runners at the Statue to Statue 15K in Alabama, the Biggest Loser Half Marathon in Alabama, and the Run to the Rapids in Ohio. RaceJoy issued close to 3,000 GPS-based progress alerts and more than 500 cheers to race participants over the weekend.

One thing we learned this weekend regarding our new GPS Progress Alert feature is that some may not be understanding that the race participant must use RaceJoy for spectators to track them. We believe this confusion is because of what people have experienced with timing system-based progress alerts in which the spectator can track any race participant. With timing system-based alerts, the tracking is done as the participant’s bib or shoe tag crosses the timing equipment on the course. With RaceJoy’s GPS-based alerts, we use the participant’s phone as the tracking device for RaceJoy to communicate the phone’s location and performance data. Therefore, participants must use RaceJoy for spectators to receive GPS-based alerts and watch their progress on the map. Most people seem to understand this, but we have seen some misunderstand and think they should be able to find all race participants in RaceJoy. So, we will be exploring ways to communicate this more clearly to our users.

It is important to note that GPS is not an exact science and RaceJoy’s GPS-based alerts should not be viewed as a replacement for official race timing information. However, it is a valuable tool for tracking and to get more, real-time updates on your progress.

Special thanks to the race directors at these races who are early adopters and who are helping to spread the word about RaceJoy and bring new, improved race experiences to their events. We appreciate your support and enthusiasm!

If you are a race organizer and would like to get your race added to RaceJoy, simply enable RaceJoy in the RunSignUp GO platform and provide your course map electronically (KML, GPX or link to map). You can also email this to addrace@racejoy.com. We require a minimum of two weeks to load and will send you a notice and promotion toolkit once it is active. This is free to the event and the participant and spectator pay a 99 cents per race upgrade fee. Buyout options are also available for race organizers to offer RaceJoy for free. For more information about this option, please see our PhoneTrak Pricing Flyer.